On the up.

The weather stayed dry so I was able to fit the petrol tank. First up I took the fuel sender unit off and squirted lots of Double T (similar stuff to WD40) inside the sender and I got it working. Once that was refitted I put the tank back on (easy once you've taken it off) added some petrol and stated the car up. It seemed to run a bit better. I went down to my local Morrisons and put some more petrol in and gave the car a run on the motorway. I'm sure this has helped because it was running better (not cutting out whenever I stop the car) and after adjusting the idling I paid a visit to Barry the Acclaim guru. He was impressed with the car and he diagnosed loose weights in the distributor as there was a noise coming from there. I went away and removed the distributor and dismantled it. Lo and behold the weights weren't loose so I cleaned the inside of the distributor with some Double T and put it all back together, got the car running again, added some more petrol (the gauge works now) and took it for another motorway run. It has been fine ever since. I think this car needs to be used so I'll put it into daily use and see how it goes.